Older and Fouler Things (Jed Horn Supernatural Thrillers Book 4)

by Peter Nealen

  I felt chilled. What could be as bad as a demon trying to get its hooks into us? Unfortunately, I knew that both Sam and Michael would be reticent to say much more. Angels tend to be slightly paranoid about even appearing to directly influence humans.

  After half their number had rebelled and set out to get humanity to destroy itself, I guess that’s kind of understandable.

  “If things get bad enough?” I asked. “Will you still back us up?”

  “As much as I can,” he said. “You should know that already. But like I said, you’ve got to keep your head and pray for it. Otherwise, my hands are tied.”

  “Why now?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ve attracted the attention of some very dangerous entities, both corporeal and spiritual,” was all Michael said. “They want you taken down, and you are standing in the way of several of their goals. If they can corrupt you along the way, they’ll be happy. The other axis of attack is something of a contingency, in case that doesn’t happen.”

  “Can we drive this thing away?” I asked. “Before whatever it is comes after it?”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, speaking for the first time. “But it will depend on your unshakable faith. And I doubt that your guest has that kind of faith to draw on. He’s a weak point in your defenses. You have to help him, as best you can, or he will become more of a problem.”

  “Is he too far gone?” I asked, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.

  The Captain shook his massive head. “No one is ever too far gone,” he said, “not until the moment of their death. If Rudolf Hoess could confess his sins and receive the Eucharist before he was hanged, trust me. No one is beyond hope until they are dead.”

  On that note, I woke up.

  It was still early, and the light outside the windows was still pale and gray. But Magnus was up. And barking. And he didn’t sound happy.

  I was out of bed fast, my body tingling with the adrenaline rush. If Magnus was upset, it did not bode well, and coming on the heels of that dream, I had all sorts of ideas of just how bad it could be dancing in my head. I was already sure that we’d driven the demon out of the house, only to have it take up residence in the woods. Was the other threat that the Captain had talked about on us already?

  Still in my t-shirt and shorts, I headed out the back, .45 in my hand, pulling my crucifix over my head. Ray was already on the back porch, his rifle in his hands, and Kolya was on my heels.

  Magnus was standing beneath the lightning-blasted spruce in the back, growling, barking, and bristling. And, backed up against the trunk of the tree, her hand on her sidearm, looking considerably disheveled, was Special Agent Trudeau.

  “Easy, Magnus!” Ray roared, just barely making himself heard over the big dog’s barking. “Let her go!” I noticed that his rifle was halfway pointed in the general direction of the tree. If Trudeau looked like she was about to shoot Magnus, Ray was going to make that a losing proposition, FBI agent or not.

  “Call off your dog!” Trudeau demanded. Her hand was on the butt of her pistol. The fact that that was exactly what Ray was doing was apparently lost on her. Or, she was just the kind who had to make sure she was giving the orders.

  After another couple of earthshaking growls, Magnus backed off. Of course, now there were three of us, all armed, on the back porch, watching her.

  “I sure hope you’ve got a warrant, Special Agent Trudeau,” I said loudly. “Because if you don’t, you’re trespassing.”

  “That’s just the kind of dodge I’d expect you to make,” she snapped.

  “He’s right, though,” Ray said. “Do you have a warrant?”

  “I have all the authorizations I need,” she said primly. Which didn’t answer the question. At all. In fact, I was pretty sure it was a dodge to avoid admitting that she did not, in fact, have a warrant, and was, in fact, trespassing on Ray’s land.

  “Let’s see the warrant, then,” I said. “Or you can get lost. Your own partner said you didn’t have a case. Where is Special Agent Miller, anyway?”

  “I’m sure he’s close by,” she replied. “And I’m the one investigating, so I will ask the questions here.”

  “Doesn’t work that way, darlin’,” Ray said. “Since you’ve been asked three times now about a warrant, and haven’t produced one, I have to assume that you’re trespassing on my property on your own initiative, without the knowledge of your bosses or any kind of court. So you can just head on down the road.”

  Magnus growled again. Trudeau stiffened. Magnus took a step toward her, and everyone tensed.

  “I suggest you get your hand off that firearm, Miss Trudeau,” I said, deliberately leaving her title off, especially since she wasn’t here in any official capacity. “Even if you managed to draw and shoot Magnus before he got to you, it wouldn’t end well for you, especially since you’re a trespasser, not a law enforcement officer, at the moment.”

  I saw Magnus tense; he was getting ready to spring if she moved wrong. I didn’t think that she saw it, as she was glaring at me at the time.

  “You might have pulled the wool over Miller’s eyes,” she hissed, “though I don’t know for sure how. I thought he had more common sense than to believe all this mystical crap you’re peddling. But I know there’s something going on here, something off. You lot are no better than the Branch Davidians, or any other superstitious cult trying to manipulate people. And I’m going to find out what you’re up to.”

  “Sure you are,” Kolya said dryly. “After you get court order and warrant to investigate.”

  She looked like she wanted to spit. I wondered if she had any facial expression beyond “bitter and angry.”

  “Maybe you’d better answer the question, Miss Trudeau,” I said. “Where is your partner?” I had a feeling that if we just sent her packing on her own, she’d circle back. She was already feeling like a bad penny. I wanted Miller there, to make sure she got gone and stayed that way. Hopefully, if he reported this particular incident, she might actually get taken off of active investigations. That might erode some of her sense of self-righteous authority.

  No, I reflected, it probably wouldn’t.

  “Not only that, but what are you doing here in first place?” Kolya asked. “How did you find this place?”

  “Never mind how I found it,” she snapped. “That’s sources and methods in an ongoing investigation, and you do not need to know.”

  “I think we’ve already been over this, Miss Trudeau,” I sighed. “Unless something has changed, which I doubt, since you still won’t show us a warrant that gives you court-ordered permission to be lurking around my friend’s back yard, there is no ongoing investigation. Not of us.”

  “You’re forgetting the ongoing investigation into the events south of here,” she answered. There was a note of mingled triumph and surprise in her voice, as if she had been grasping at straws, and just caught one. “That is still an open investigation.”

  I just shook my head. This was getting pathetic. How had this neurotic woman ever actually gotten handed a badge?

  Right about then, gravel crunched from the front of the house. A car was pulling up. More than one, actually, if I was hearing right.

  “Wait here with her,” Ray said. “I’ll go take a look. Maybe it’s her partner, come to bail her out.”

  “Kolya can handle her,” I said. “I’ll come with you. Just in case.”

  It was Special Agent Miller. But he wasn’t alone.

  He had pulled up in a plain white sedan with government plates, as befitted a public servant, though I wasn’t entirely sure if that was the correct way of describing FBI agents, at least not at the moment. So far, my entire interaction with the FBI had largely consisted of tiredly dealing with Trudeau’s wild accusations and bald-faced hatred. Hatred that I still didn’t understand.

  Miller parked and got out, shutting his door with a resounding noise that echoed through the quiet of the woods. He glanced over his shoulder at the
other vehicle behind him, but seemed unconcerned with the old Scout that was trundling up the dirt road, and turned back to us.

  As for me, I was mighty glad to see that old junkheap of a Scout. It meant we had more backup.

  “Is she here?” Miller asked us. He sounded tired.

  Ray jerked a thumb to indicate the back of the house. “She’s out back,” he replied, “presuming you’re talking about a hatchet-faced blond with a really bad attitude.”

  Miller nodded. He looked deeply weary and extremely frustrated. “Yes, that is exactly who I’m talking about. Has she done anything?”

  “Only trespassing, so far,” I told him. “That we know about.”

  He sighed. “Lead on.” Ray waved to him and headed around back.

  I looked over Miller’s shoulder, to where Charlie Parker and Frank Tall Bear were getting out of Charlie’s Scout. I waved at them to follow, with a bit of a shake of the head to forestall any questions. I didn’t know what they were doing there; I hadn’t even known that Frank had properly joined the Order yet. But I wasn’t going to turn down the help, and this wasn’t the time to play Twenty Questions, anyway.

  We led Miller around to where Trudeau was still standing with her back to the tree. Magnus had backed off a little, but he wasn’t relaxed, and he was still watching her carefully. Kolya was outwardly relaxed, leaning against one of the awning posts on the porch. But he was carefully leaning in such a way that he could easily get to his .44 if she got froggy.

  We didn’t generally like to use our weapons on human beings. Like the Captain had said, there’s hope for a man or a woman so long as there was still breath in their lungs. But almost all of us had some kind of military experience, and we were all good with our guns. We had to be. It tended to translate fairly easily to more…mundane threats, if the situation called for it.

  “What the hell, Karen?” Miller demanded as he came around the corner of the house. For the briefest of moments, what might almost have been shame flickered across her face, but she hardened it quickly as he continued. “What do you think you’re doing? You are a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You don’t get to go off on your own and play Nancy Drew!”

  “Come on, Miller!” she answered. “You know there’s something weird going on with this bunch! You can’t really believe that they’re just the helpful mystics they want everyone to think they are!”

  Miller dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “Yes, there is weird stuff going on. I know. That’s what our entire investigation is about. But that doesn’t mean that these folks are the ones responsible for it, and we’ve got a lot of testimony to the effect that they aren’t. So why can’t you let it go?”

  “Because there’s got to be a trick to it!” she answered. “And they’re the ones with something to gain by tricking people into believing this stuff.”

  “Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t,” he answered. “But you can’t go flouting the law and the SOPs just because you’ve got suspicions. That’s not the way we work. You’ve been reading too many of those off-the-wall thrillers.”

  She shot him a truly venomous glare. I thought she’d been reserving those for me.

  He seemed utterly unruffled by it, though. “Now come on. Get in the car. I’ll see if I can smooth things over with these folks so that hopefully they won’t press charges. Which they would be well within their rights to do.”

  She stalked past him, her back stiff and an expression of pure, molten fury on her face.

  Miller turned to us, a hangdog look on his face. “She didn’t damage anything, did she?” he asked.

  Ray shook his head. “Not that I know of. I doubt she got close to the house before Magnus, here, treed her.”

  Miller looked like he wanted to bury his face in his hands. “Can you let this go? No charges? I know she was trespassing, but I can promise you that I’ll make sure she stays away.”

  “Can you really do that?” I asked. “What if the investigation leads you back here anyway?”

  “Then I’ll still keep her away,” he said flatly. “The FBI can’t afford these kinds of shenanigans.”

  “What is her problem, anyway?” Kolya asked. “Why does she hate us so much?”

  “That’s complicated,” Miller replied. “And, frankly, even if I were inclined to take the time to explain, it really isn’t your business. I don’t know you, and I’m not inclined to air Special Agent Trudeau’s personal issues to you.”

  “Her personal issues are becoming ours,” I pointed out, folding my arms across my chest. “If she gives you the slip again…”

  “She won’t,” he said sharply. “You have my word on that. This is the last you’re going to see of her.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Special Agent Miller,” Ray said.

  Miller just kind of waved at us, and headed back around the corner of the house toward his car. We followed; none of us were in a particularly trusting or friendly mood, right at that moment.

  To make matters worse, I could have sworn I had seen a shadow move right behind Trudeau as she stepped away from the tree. And it hadn’t been her shadow.

  Frank and Charlie were still on the porch out front. Trudeau was sitting in the passenger seat of Miller’s car. I couldn’t see much of her through the windshield, but she still looked stiff and angry. Of course, it might have been my imagination projecting just a bit, but that wasn’t too far for my imagination to project, in her case.

  Miller waved at us again as he went down to the car, got in the driver’s seat, and started it up. A moment later, he’d turned around and was retreating down the road.

  “Well, hopefully that’s the last we see of them,” Ray said. “I don’t know where you’ve been making friends, Jed, but they haven’t been pleasant ones, lately.”

  “You’re telling me, Ray,” I replied, as I turned to Frank and Charlie. “What brings you two reprobates up here?” I asked.

  Charlie didn’t smile. There had been a time when Charlie had been the most flamboyant, outgoing, downright wild Hunter in the Western US. But the man I saw in front of me now was different. He’d lost his mustache and mutton chops, and was clean-shaven with a close-cropped haircut now. He dressed simply, in a dark t-shirt and jeans, and wasn’t given to much talking. His face was drawn and his eyes hooded.

  He’d been that way ever since Storr’s Hole. The Walker had wounded him, deeply. None of us knew exactly how. Charlie never talked about it.

  Frank Tall Bear had once been a sheriff’s deputy. He’d been one of the pair of deputies who had responded to the call when Eryn and I had gotten in some trouble in the tiny town of Coldwell, where we’d first picked up the Walker’s trail. He’d promptly found himself fighting for his life right alongside us, and had come along on the pursuit of the Walker itself. He’d been there every step of the way, rolling with the punches and learning as he went. We’d last seen him after Storr’s Hole, having sent him to go work some answers out himself and set his affairs in order if he wanted to join the Order. I hadn’t heard from him since, but I was glad to see the towering Nez Perce. He was a good man in a scrap.

  “I’m not sure you’ll quite believe why we’re here,” Frank said. “I’m not sure I believe it, though I know that I should. But first of all, what was that all about?”

  “It seems the FBI has taken some interest in the mass destruction that the Walker and our unknown sorcerer left behind,” I explained as I stepped up on the porch and shook both men’s hands. Charlie’s handshake was still as firm as ever. It just lacked some of the…juice it might have had, before. “And one of the Special Agents they sent is a little…overzealous.”

  “That’s one way of describing what I just saw and heard,” Frank said. “I might also call that a hard-core grudge, if there was a reason for it. Have you crossed that lady’s path before?”

  “Nope,” I answered. “Never saw her before a couple days ago. Now, what brings you two up here? Because somehow I find myself doub
ting that it was just on a whim to come see how Ray and Magnus are doing.”

  Frank glanced at Charlie, but the other man didn’t appear to be eager to talk. “It wasn’t.” He took a deep breath. “Charlie and I have been working together, this last month or two. We met up while I was learning a few things from Father Pat.” I raised an eyebrow at that; I knew Father Pat; he was the pastor up in Silverton, and we’d faced a near extinction level event together. That was also when and where I’d met Eryn. And the Captain, though few people knew about that part.

  “We were up north,” he continued, “following up on a pack of goatheads that were tormenting a farmer and his family, when we both had the same dream, just two nights ago.”

  “It was the Captain,” Charlie said quietly. While not too many people have had encounters with the commander of Archangels, everyone in the Order knows who he is. “He told us that we needed to get ourselves moving, and that you guys needed every bit of help you could get.”

  I’ll admit; both of my eyebrows were pegged to my hairline at that point. I hadn’t told anyone about my dream of that morning; there hadn’t been time. But it was making the sense of impending doom weigh that much more heavily. “Did he say why?” I asked.

  Charlie shrugged. It was an oddly listless gesture for him. “When St. Michael says get moving, you get moving.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, we were interrupted by the sound of an approaching vehicle on the road. All eyes turned to look. It was getting downright busy around Ray’s place that morning.

  It was Miller’s car again. He rolled up to the house, stopped, and got out, his face expressionless.

  “There are three trees down across the road,” he said. “Do any of you happen to have a chainsaw?”